The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is requesting $1.8 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation (DNN) programs in fiscal 2017. The funding request is down from the $1.9 billion it currently receives due to prior year carryover balances and planned termination of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility.
The NNSA’s DNN program partners with the State, Defense, and Homeland Security departments, among other government agencies, to carry out nuclear threat reduction, nonproliferation, nuclear security, and counterterrorism activities such as reactor conversions, nuclear material site upgrades, radiation detection equipment installation, global nuclear security training, and nuclear cooperation agreement negotiation. It also works with the International Atomic Energy Agency and coordinates with international partners through initiatives such as the Nuclear Security Summits.
Anne Harrington, the NNSA’s deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation, said Wednesday the request decreased because “even though we may project when we think that certain activities will be executed, because we have international partners, that’s not always possible.”
“In any budgeting situation, if you have money that you have not been able to execute, the great temptation is for that money to be scooped up and allocated elsewhere,” Harrington said. “We still need the funds that we are using to cash flow ourselves through 2017 for the original purposes, but it’s just that we don’t need it right now [in fiscal 2017].”
The NNSA defense nuclear nonproliferation material management and minimization funding request increased by $24.5 million from the fiscal 2016 level of $316.6 million, which the agency attributed to accelerator reactor conversions in Kazakhstan and the U.S. Meanwhile, the department decreased its funding request for DNN research and development, which includes proliferation and nuclear detonation detection activities, from $419.3 million in fiscal 2016 to the $393.9 million in the budget year beginning Oct. 1. The budget noted the reduction pertained to fewer planned activities for arms control-related research and development.
A recently released study found that highly enriched uranium (HEU) minimization in civilian research reactors worldwide is progressing more slowly than previously estimated due to technical challenges in developing the low-enriched uranium fuels necessary for high-performance research reactors and political challenges involving Russia’s unwillingness to convert its own research reactors. Asked about the extended timeline for this project, Harrington said the challenges “are not necessarily linear.”
“We’re very happy with the initial performance of the fuel that we have developed … but the next big challenge is [moving] from a small scale to industrial-level production in order to meet the commitment that we made in this program, which is a need to keep the cost economically feasible for the operators,” Harrington said. “We are on a good trajectory.”
For DNN’s nonproliferation and arms control funding, the budget request decrease of $5.5 million reflects the postponement of some nuclear verification and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty-related activities in a non-NPT Review Conference year. The NNSA also requested $271.9 million for nuclear counterterrorism and incident response, a $37.5 million increase from fiscal 2016, to provide rapid response to nuclear or radiological incidents. The increase is largely for the building of a secure mobile communications capability along with interagency partners, improvements to emergency response technical equipment, and the implementation of a DOE-FBI program to address the threat of nuclear terrorism.
DNN’s $70 million decrease in its nonproliferation construction request is the result of the DOE’s decision to terminate the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Analyses of the MOX fuel approach found that it would require roughly $800 million to $1 billion annually. This has led the DOE to seek an alternative, less expensive plutonium dilution and disposal option.
The DOE estimated that DNN would receive a total $8.1 billion from fiscal 2018 to fiscal 2021.
